


Guard Duty

by SmexyWatermelon



Series: Crazy Vaulters and Tattered Ferrymen [1]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 3
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Kissing, Oneshot, Smooching, tipsy Charon is kind of bitchy, yay booze
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-19
Updated: 2016-12-19
Packaged: 2018-09-09 20:45:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8911324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SmexyWatermelon/pseuds/SmexyWatermelon
Summary: Willow got injured and Charon and Lone are hired to watch over the Underworld's entrance for a night.It had all gone not-so-akwardly until Lone decided to get a sad fuddle.





	

After a seven hours shift in front of the doors to Underworld, Maya had begun thinking that taking a drinking break from their patrol duty would have been a good idea; and since he would have protected her easily enough even if she had gotten drunk – which was easily happening since she had little to no drinking resistance – Charon agreed eagerly.  
Willow would have skinned them alive if she were ever to find out, but after that last talon mercenary assault she was laying injured somewhere in Underworld, trying to catch some rest to recover; thus placing them outside the doors for the night, as a poor substitute of what the ghoul lady did every day.

It had been a long night, incredibly longer with her constantly blabbing at his side. But after a couple of drinks, her tongue had stopped running loose and she had simply been staring in the distance for half an hour, without muttering a word. They were sitting just outside the entrance of the depths, backs leaning against the big walls of the once museum as the stars steadily disappeared from the night sky, making way to the approaching dawn.  
It was an unusual and almost welcome silence the one surrounding them, until she had murmured that sentence, whispering it as if almost being afraid to ask.

“Can you make me feel like I’m being loved again?”

He almost chokes on his whisky at that question: he manages to suppress a cough, his throat burning.

“Excuse me?”  
She exhales deeply, and he immediately wishes he had formulated that better: too many punishments had taught him the price of insubordination. Not that she would have forced him to kill someone just out of a grudge, still…  
“Does that count as one of your services or not?”

No, not really.

That would have been his standard answer. But after a couple – okay, _way more than a couple_ \- of glasses and a night spent in the chilly fall air, he wasn’t looking forward to refusing some warmth. Especially not from his curvy employer – yes, he shouldn’t have noticed that. Yes, he shouldn’t have liked that – but guess what? He already had.

He blankly stares at her – part of him wishing she was just making a joke he wasn’t getting – but she keeps staring back biting lightly at her lower lip, her eyes shinier than usual.  
“May I… speak freely?”  
Of course he fucking he can, but he must ask. He just has to.

She nods once, never breaking eye contact with him. He lowers and gently leans against her, close enough to murmur in her ear but not quite to make his tattered ghoul skin graze against her neck.  
“I know why you feel so alone. Why you toss and turn in your bedsheets at night.” She closes her eyes, quietly listening to his deep rough voice. “You only focus on your mistakes, never on the good you did along the way. I hate it when you sell yourself so short: it’s like you can’t deal with the fucking overachiever in you. Sometimes you really make me want to bind you and force you to take a day off.” He sees her hands in the corner of his eye, her fingers curling in little fists, shaking a little “And you must know you deserve much more than a rant from an old ghoul, but this is all I can offer you, mistress.”  
“Charon…” He knew what she was going to say: she was going to back off, being the stubborn vaultie she is, saying that she didn’t deserve any of what he had just said. He would have been cool with her attitude-  
But, hell no, not tonight at least. She had got him drunk, she had told him to speak his mind, and now she was fucking going to let him finish and believe what he was telling her.  
His lips keep ghosting on her pale skin, close enough to feel but not to touch. His tone a little harsher, a little angrier than before, but after all it’s tough to notice the difference when your voice is two hundred years old. “Stop doing that: you save people, every fucking day. I don’t know why you hate yourself so much, and to be honest I don’t even care why. I just know for sure that you should stop, because you offered a hand when normal people would have just turned their backs more times that I can count. I-“ the little part of his brain that wasn’t drowning in alcohol tried to stop him, but he simply disregarded it and blurted it out. “I idolize you, mistress.”  
Damn. Did he really just say something corny like that?  
He should have known opening a second bottle was a bad idea.

Another tear forms at the edge of her eye, and it falls down her cheek when she blinks. She inhales sharply, takes another sip from the half-empty whisky bottle. She waits a moment before speaking again, Charon never moving from his position slightly above her shoulder.  
“Why are you so sure? Why should I deserve more?” she blinks several times to avoid crying and slightly turns her head to look at him: seeing her so savage on the battlefield and so cocky around other scavvers had made him disregard how fragile she must have been feeling.  
She sniffs and lowers her eyes, another tear staining her cheek.

Damn, he kept forgetting she was little more than a kid… he was too old to feel sorry for anyone, but he cringed every time he learnt something new about her life – the vault, her father, his hopeless legacy; all that bull weighing on that nineteen-year-old just wasn’t fair, but that’s simply how the Wasteland was.  
He sighs at that thought and drags his hand on her chin, taking it between index and thumb and forcing her to meet his gaze. “You are worth something, more than you can imagine. And even if you don’t live up to your own expectations, never forget you’re one of the best people I have worked for in a long time. And I have lived long enough to have high expectations too, boss; that’s why I’m damn sure you are good people.”

He almost gets lost in her ebony eyes; she blinks, her pupils traveling to those charred, thin lips of his – just for a short moment, before returning to his eyes.  
He knows it’s a bad idea the moment he sees the way she’s gazing at him – but it was _her_ bad idea nonetheless. He didn’t encourage nor stop her – albeit he knew what his place was, and it surely wasn’t at her side.

She tilts her head and closes the gap between them: it’s short, sweet, and he almost- _almost_ \- leans into it.

She then tries to deepen it - her tongue licking his lips and asking for entrance - but he isn’t responding in any way. He actually doesn’t even know what he is supposed to do in this situation. A pretty smoothskin trying to get in his pants? Definitely on the list of things that didn’t happen often to him.

“Charon? Would you mind?” she isn’t upset. She’s just… agog?  
‘Damn crazy human’ he mutters to himself, before clearing his throat and trying to get some of his composure back – just enough to stop her from doing whatever she was thinking.  
“My contract only covers combat situations.” Luckily, his voice doesn’t shake. Damn, having a rough 200 year old ghoul voice must have some perks from time to time. He would have probably been blushing, had he still enough layers of epidermis on.  
But her eyes shine when they meet his – she must have noticed something that had slipped – maybe he was pressing his lips against her kiss, maybe he had accidentally grazed his palm against her tight. Everything always got so fuzzy when he was around her – and alcohol too, for that matter.  
“Kiss me back before I beat the shit out of you.” She roars, and this time, she was probably going to do that if he didn’t listen. “Physical violence invalidates-“ she pulls him back into another kiss and – damn she’s so warm. And soft. God, he doesn’t even remember the last time he has kissed someone like this.  
She tastes like whisky and dust, with an aftertaste of something resembling blood. And sugar. Damn, that woman ate far too much sugar.  
But most of all, her lips are soft. Plump, cherry-red, and gradually getting more and more swollen as they prolonged the kiss.  
She wasn’t too good at it – but she wasn’t shy either.

Living in a vault, there weren’t many occasions to indulge in such activities – without being discovered, at least: it was a very secluded place, and those few people who lived in there sure talked a lot. It wasn’t surprising she wasn’t experienced – although he had to admit she was a fast learner.  
In a matter of minutes she was kissing back just as eagerly as he was: her tongue brushed along his, licking the roof of his mouth before retreating, a gentle nibble on his lips and she deepened the kiss again, obscene smooching noises filling the air around them.  
He leaves her mouth to straighten back up – even sitting he was a good 10 inches taller than her – and pulls her closer to his body, finding just the right angle. She mumbles his name during those two seconds he needed to do this, but the rest of the sentence becomes an incoherent moan as he slips his tongue past her parted lips again.

His hand presses against her thigh, every squeeze accompanied by one of her muffled moans against his mouth. He had to scold himself multiple times, whenever the idea of pushing her under his weight and slipping between her legs started to sound too appealing.  
He feels her fingertips caressing his cheek: when he opens his eyes she parts a little, leaving one last chaste kiss lingering on his mouth before opening her eyes and looking at him with a little smile. She then lowers her gaze, sighing, sinking in the narrow space beside him, her arm wrapping around his back and her head resting on the crook of his neck – or that was the intention, but actually she barely reached the height of his pecs - without as much as muttering a word.  
After a while, he slyly drags his arm around her shoulders and keeps her close to him, not even expecting this to be some romantic crap, just hoping she was feeling safe against him – or warm, at least.

This kid had been thrown out of her vault not even six months ago. He couldn’t really blame her for feeling lonely from time to time.

They silently waited for dawn to shine from behind the buildings, the air surrounding them getting warmer as the sunshine shone on the museum.  
When the sunrays caress her skin she closes her eyes and inhales deeply for a brief second, before cracking them open again and mumbling “Alright, end of our duty.”  
She pushes herself on her feet, Charon following her suit.  
She looks a little dizzy “Are you alright?” he clears his throat before adding that last word that made clear things hadn’t changed between them “…mistress?”  
She brushes her eyes and yawns a little. ”I’m just sleepy.” She mumbles.  
“Could you carry me inside?” he cocks an eyebrow – or what was left of it – at that question.  
“Do I look like a goddamn postman to you?” he grumbles, but she just smiles at him and tilts her head on the side. “Pretty please with sugar on top?”

A sneer forms on his face as an idea pops into his mind. “Alright.” Before she can complain he has already wrapped his arm around her waist and lifted her on his shoulder, her butt pointing towards the sky and her legs madly wiggling as she tried to push herself in a less awkward position.  
“Charon!” his grin widens as he opens the door and walks back inside the museum, his passenger thumping her fists against his back.  
“Goddamnit, you’re the worst!” she yells, half chuckling, half serious.

He knew he was going to pay for this for the rest of their trip towards Megaton, but she was smiling again, and even if he would have never admitted it, that’s all he really cared about.


End file.
